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The Prodigal Son Remembers




The story of the prodigal son is the story of a sweet home where two sons and a father lived. Thre is no mention of a mother or sister. It was a wealthy houselhold where there was plenty to share. The younger son rejected the home and and left for a far away place and ruined his inheritance and became so poor that he didnt have a place to live or food to eat. Then he remembered about the father's home and ultimately returns. There are people who are upset that the father did not do anything to search the son. There is no reference to say that the father did not. Knowing how kind this father turned out to be, I believe this father must have done everything possible to contact him. In fact, I believe that he was in constant touch with him, and would have asked him to come back several times. Somehow the father 'saw' (meaning knew) his son coming back.

There are two remembrances in this story. The son’s remembrance led to repentance and return. The father’s remembrance led to reconciliation and restoration. If we read the passage carefully, not only the son remembered about the father’s home, but the father remembers the son. “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

Unlike humans, God can choose to remember and choose not to remember. Humans remember the things we don't want to remember and forget the things we want to remember. Hebrews 8:12 says God will remember our sins no more. Isaiah 43:25 also says the same. He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.(Micah 7:9). Someone said, God will cast all your repented sins into the depths of the sea and placed a "no fishing" sign over it. When God remembers us, he does not think about our sins, he thinks about Jesus, God remembers us not like the world does. God remembers us with His Grace. God remembers you with a name in Jesus Christ.

Human Remembrance is an interesting thing. We remember things we don't want to remember, but forget the things we don't want to forget. Bad things tend to stay in memory longer than good things.  Almost everyone remembers negative things more strongly and in more detail. There are physiological as well as psychological reasons for this. Negative emotions generally involve more thinking, and the information is processed more thoroughly than positive ones, according a researcher. Thus, we tend to ruminate more about unpleasant events — and use stronger words to describe them — than happy ones.

The necessary element is that the son remembered what life was like back home – this is what drove his change of heart. The truth is that we cannot change the past. We can ruin a perfectly good present by worrying about the past. We may have failed, disappointed ourselves and others miserably. As people of faith we need to move on and remember the goodness of God in the past, mercies of God in the present and the promises God has for us in the future.

It may take to the level of eating the food of the pigs to make us remember the blessings. Everyone knows disappointment sooner or later. We may be burdened with with the painful memories of the past. Friends break their word, marriages end in divorce, our children move away and never call us, colleagues betray us, the company lays us off, doctors can’t cure us, our investments disappear, our dreams are shattered, the best-laid plans go astray, other Christians disappoint us, and very often, we disappoint ourselves. We live in a world of disappointment, and if we do not come to grips with this truth, we are doomed to be unhappier tomorrow than we are today.

Human sin is so terrible that it cannot be cured through moral and religious laws. We need a savior who is sinless and have the power to restore. God so loved the world that He sent Jesus to die for our sins that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but in Him have eternal life. He is the sinless lamb of God that was sacrificed for our sins. “He was delivered to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” (Rom 4:25). It is not about what we do or did not do. It is about coming to one’s senses and returning to God. God’s grace is always available and it is greater than any of our sins. There will be joy in heaven when one sinner remembers and returns.

Blessings

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